


A Safe Place

by VengeanceAngel



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Because there really aren't enough of them, Character Study, Domestic Violence, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-10 23:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17435933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VengeanceAngel/pseuds/VengeanceAngel
Summary: This is a character study of sorts. A day comes where everything finally falls into place for a lot of characters. Family, when there is trauma, can be messy and ugly, but when there is healing, it can be beautiful and protective.This is a gift for someone who still crosses my mind once in awhile and who very gently and slowly inched me back into writing again. It may have taken months and months, but I'm writing again! Thanks TWDObsessive for starting me on the journey.Prompt: "She suddenly realizes she might be alone for the rest of her life."





	A Safe Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TWDObsessive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/gifts).



> PLEASE MIND THE TAGS! There is abuse talked about in here. It's not overly graphic, but it is present in the fic as it happened in the distant past. Be mindful of yourself as you read if these things trigger you. 
> 
> A friend was helping me to write a little something as a break from my series 12 Days of Harringrove and gave me some random prompts. As a slash writer, how could I take "She suddenly realizes she might be alone for the rest of her life." and make it into a fic that I enjoy writing? Well, turns out there is a way. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

She suddenly realizes she might be alone for the rest of her life.

Susan Hargrove glances back to see if anyone is here, but the emptiness behind her seems to laugh at her as if it has its own agenda. As if it is there to remind her that she asked for this. The loneliness burns through her as much as any shame or feeling of failure did in the past. 

As much as it still does.

She wonders who would stand next to her now anyway. They all left. Billy had run as far and as fast as he could as soon as he turned 18, nearly 15 years ago now. He made his way to California and built a life around his own belief systems. She thinks it is ironic that he opened up a surf shop of all things called RNR. The idea is Rest And Relaxation, but she has a sneaking suspicion that it is a dig at his father. Respect and responsibility. He drilled that into Billy’s head for as long as she had been in their lives and probably years before that. 

She watched as he was hit and screamed at and humiliated. She knows that she doesn’t deserve his company now. She never did. But there was something so frightening about Neil in those days. When she met him, he was the man who saved her. Her husband had grown sick of her and said she was too needy and cautious. He was right, of course. She is certain that if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with Maxine, he would never have married her in the first place. 

At the time, she was trying to escape her own father. She wraps her arms around herself as a cold chill causes her skin to break out in goosebumps. At least she tells herself that. She tells herself it isn’t the memory of her father’s disappointment in everything she ever attempted. It isn’t the sound of his voice ringing in her head, telling her over and over that his life would have been better with a son instead of her. The loser. The inconvenience. 

She used to tell herself that she was better than her mother because she had never raised a hand to Billy alongside Neil. But her mother… her mother only wanted to make her father happy and she couldn’t. She couldn’t keep him in her bed because she was a disappointment, too. But he did not spend his time in bed alone. Apparently Susan had a use to him after all. She bows her head at the memory and allows old shame to wash over her. 

Her mother was the woman who couldn’t give her father any more than one child and that had been a disappointing girl who made his life horrible, except in the quiet of the night when Susan's door would open and she would absorb the only twisted version of intimacy that he gifted her. And when her mother had discovered the secret…. Susan shudders and remembers and the sting of the wooden spoon on her arm, her leg, her face, wherever her mother could connect as Susan ran and ran to a safe place that didn’t exist. 

She hears her mother screaming at her how worthless and useless she is. She knows that, in some horrific way, her mother was jealous of her in that moment. Susan would have gladly given all of it up to her mother to carry the burden of keeping her father satisfied. Susan was more jealous of her mother, who her father never touched anymore. 

She wipes a tear and holds herself more rigid as she remembers that she is the reason that her parents’ lives were ruined. At least that is what they had always told her. She sighs softly at her loneliness.  


She knows she asked for this fate. It was inevitable, her parents would say. Always a disappointment. She wonders even now what happened to them. She, too, ran at 18. 

Right into Maxine’s father. Right into the only person who had ever looked at her up to that point with anything other than disdain or a disgusting parody of lust. It took her all of two dates to fall into his bed and a month after that to become pregnant with his child. She considered calling her father and mother, but she wanted to wait to see if she could at least provide them with a grandson. 

No such luck. 

Susan looks up at the sky and watches as clouds continue to move in, hiding the sunshine of the spring day and blanketing her in the cold that she accepts is probably the same temperature of her worthless heart. She is surprised the rain hasn’t come and half hopes for it so she can have the privacy of her own tears, hidden by the water that will run down her face if the sky finally opens up. 

She sucks in a deep breath and remembers how she treated Maxine and her father. She always thought they would disappear since she deserved nothing good. Her ex couldn’t handle her anxiety. He couldn’t convince her that she deserved his love and eventually he had given up. She met Neil within a year and he had convinced her that Maxine could still disappear because of how much she loved her father. Maxine would leave Susan, too, Neil said. Unless they made another life for themselves far away where Susan would be protected and would be important to a family she deserved. Unlike her parents, Susan adored her little girl. She was nothing short of precious and Susan vowed to protect Maxine as nobody had for her when she was a child.

Susan couldn’t help but be swayed. Neil fed into her fears and soothed her anxieties all at once. He made it so clear how much he needed her, how much Billy needed a mother. He would tell her all about his first wife’s death and how damaged he was and how he needed Susan to help him heal. It wasn’t just about Susan getting what she deserved. It was about Susan finally being needed, being wanted, being _worth_ something. But Susan knows now. It was her choice. She allowed herself to be convinced of Neil’s lies. Of his own needs being more important than anyone else's. 

So she joined the family and began reaching out to Billy, but he was so angry. He reminded her of her father in too many ways and she found herself recoiling from him as his existence started to pull her back into the deep pit that her parents had dug for her so many years ago. Neil was her protector once again and made sure Billy knew just how special Susan was. At first, it felt safe and flattering. But as the years passed, Susan began to see some of herself in Billy and she wondered when she traded the role of her parents’ victim for the role of being _them_. 

When Billy ran at 18, she secretly hoped that he found the safe place she had never stumbled upon. And when Neil turned on Maxine, when Susan had walked in to find her perfect baby girl curled up on the floor, holding a hand to her quickly reddening cheek with Neil standing over her; that was the beginning of the end. The fight for survival that she had smothered when her father was over her flared to life and she still remembers the sound of screaming as the vase crashed into Neil’s head. It took a minute for Susan to register that the screaming was her own and that the vase had come from her hand. 

All the evil that had been thrust upon her came out in that moment on the man who promised to protect her. As Maxine had scrambled up at her mother’s scream to pack her things, she shoved Neil into the same shelf that he had shoved Billy into time and time again. She wore herself out and went into their bedroom to pack her own things. 

But Neil asked to protect her again. 

He reminded her that she’d raised her hand to him, that she was capable of the evil that had plagued her own mother. He reminded her that she never thought she could hit anyone, but now she had hit her own husband and maybe there was nothing to stop her from unleashing that same anger on Maxine. The thought terrified her and she found herself begging anyone who would listen not to let her hurt her sweet girl. 

And Neil answered her pleas and Susan was grateful to him for protecting her from herself, for keeping the monster inside of her at bay. 

So Susan called to Maxine and told her to unpack because everything was going to be okay now. Because Susan was going to make sure nothing happened to her daughter. And the look of devastation on Maxine’s face when Neil came in and Susan _thanked_ him for forgiving _her_ for losing her temper was not enough for Susan to recognize that the pit she was standing in now was dug by Susan herself. 

Neil never hit Maxine again, but Susan soon took the brunt of the aggression that had previously been aimed at Billy. And each time, Susan thanked Neil for the bruises and the cuts. For keeping her in line and making sure she didn’t become the monster she had fought as a child. And she would ask his forgiveness for putting him in a position to protect her by harming her. After all, hurting her was painful for him, too. More so as she was the one who brought this evil into their home. 

Five years later, Maxine turned 18. She ran, too. 

She looks up as her name is called and smiles at the kind man in front of her. She sees the pity, but shrugs her shoulders. “It’s just you and me, Father.” She looks down at the hole… the pit… that Neil is in now. “You know what, Father?” She stands, the only person present in the five rows of chairs set up for the service. “Maybe it’s just you.” She walks away from the open grave, from Neil, from her feeling of obligation to the man turned monster. She has no idea how she is going to move on. She doesn’t know where to begin to heal or even if she deserves it. Neil being beat to death in a bar fight may have been the first step in her figuring it all out, though. If nothing else, it proves to her that karma really does exist.

She clutches her purse to her chest. It is where she keeps all of the photos and letters she has received throughout the years. It’s the only place that Neil never looked, as if her purse was too small to hold anything of importance when, in fact, it has held the most important treasures of all. 

She waves off the funeral director who has waited patiently by the car that brought her to this dreary place. “I’ll walk.” She ignores his protests due to a coming rain and keeps walking down the path toward the road. It’s a trek, but she sees a bench not too far up the path and sits. 

She doesn’t want to be around people who expect her to grieve. She has no grief to show. She opens up her purse and shuffles through the letters and pictures and smiles. There is a picture of Billy wearing the most ridiculous getup of a dress shirt and suit jacket with board shorts. She laughs at the big RNR sign behind him at his first store. She places it back in the purse alongside the letters telling her how he had expanded the business and has twelve stores that are doing very well, ten of them with cafes. Up and down the California coast, RNR was becoming the place to be for good shopping and great food. And the view from the decks of the cafes of the sun setting over the Pacific had graced the covers of more than a few travel magazines. 

She looks at the picture of Billy on the water, attempting to teach his oldest son, Sean, how to surf. The dark-haired eight year old looks thrilled, as does the three year old little girl, Sarah, sitting on a board nearby. Sarah’s amazing head of blonde curls makes her look like an angel. Maxine, her red hair like fire in the California sun, is holding on to her niece. Her head is thrown back in laughter at something Billy most likely said, considering that his face is turned toward her in amusement. 

Another picture shows Billy walking down the beach with a beautiful Hispanic girl on his shoulders. Estrella is Maxine’s daughter. At five years old in the picture, she is a beauty. Her skin is her father’s, but her hair shows more of Maxine. The combined look is stunning. The boy running behind Billy to catch up has the same skin and hair as black as night. But the most beautiful thing that Susan sees in that picture is the smile on all of their faces and Mateo, the younger brother to Estrella by five minutes, is reaching out his hand and Billy is reaching his hand back. He isn’t looking back at his nephew, but it’s as if he instinctively knows that if Mateo is behind him, he’ll be reaching for his uncle. 

Susan knows from the letters that Maxine is expecting another child in a few months and that Billy’s youngest son is almost six months old now. She also knows that Manuel, the man who has stolen Maxine’s heart, treats her like an actual queen and not like the tragic fake kind that Susan has been for her entire life. She looks at another picture, this one of Billy, Maxine, and Manuel on Maxine’s wedding day. They are on the beach and all barefoot. Maxine has a gentle swell hidden under the white linen dress where Mateo and Estrella are growing healthy and big. And Billy is kissing one cheek while Manuel kisses the other. Both of their hands are linked with Maxine’s over her growing belly. 

Susan wipes at her eyes and wonders how they could have come from such an awful home, as she had, and found their safe place in each other. She tries to hold her breath against the emotions that hit her as she wants so desperately to go back in time and find her safe place in them, too. 

She shakes her head. None of her wishes will ever be enough to right the wrongs that led her to this moment. She has made it clear over and over that her children are never to know that she has glimpses into their lives now. She feels that even the knowledge of this will shatter the safety they feel. She looks back down and smiles at the photo of Maxine holding the twins, while Manuel holds all three of them in his arms. 

Susan becomes vaguely aware of crunching gravel and car doors opening and closing. She wonders if the person being buried here today other than Neil will have more than just a priest to remember him or her. She tucks most of the things back into her purse and then looks at the picture of Billy holding Maxine bridal style in his arms as the children look on and laugh and clap their hands. Manuel is behind them holding Billy’s youngest son, Seth, a newborn at the time. Looking at the picture, Susan feels awkward. The picture captures Billy’s gaze straight on and the look is one of true happiness and pure love. It’s not meant for her and she knows it, but she dreams that one day she will be the type of person who deserves that look from her children. She truly considers Billy her child now, from the letters and knowing so much about him. But he has no clue she knows these things so Susan decides she has to learn to accept her wish as an empty dream. 

She sighs as she thinks about the family and the years that have passed. Sean is 11 now and Sarah is six and just starting kindergarten. Seth is beginning to crawl and his cousins Mateo and Estrella, both now eight, dote on him constantly. The cousins are apparently so close that Maxine and Billy have decided to buy houses next to each other near La Jolla, one of the most popular locations of Billy’s stores. The most recent pictures she received only last week was of all five children sitting together on the porch of one of the new homes. Sean holds Seth in his arms behind the other three, who have their arms linked, with Mateo in the middle. Susan smiles warmly at that photo, another one of her favorites, before also safely putting that one back into her purse.

Susan is happy that her children are so successful. Maxine had developed a fondness for computers and met her husband through work. Although Susan doesn’t really understand technology, apparently Maxine and Manuel have made a lot of money and now collect more and more from royalties from some program they wrote. Susan thinks of the letter she read that explained it all and grins as she remembers how she had almost gone to the high school to ask if someone could translate the terminology for her. 

She finishes putting away her treasures. She was never able to really enjoy them before. She always ran off to the library to gaze at the happy faces in those photos in secret. The library also became her place to enjoy her latest obsession: a science fiction series about a small town with monsters with rows and rows of teeth and a world of hatred and fear living within a world that looked to anyone else like a normal happy one. Susan felt a pull toward the story as if it somehow was a metaphor for her own life, but when she first mentioned it to Neil, he had called it garbage and insisted she stop reading it immediately. She told him she would never finish the first chapter of the first book. But now she is currently looking forward to buying the collection now that Neil is dead and hopes to be one of the first to get the tenth in the series next month. Defying Neil on that order was easily the best decision Susan had made for herself in a long time, she thinks. 

She snaps her purse shut and ponders how odd and wonderful it feels to have something to look forward to for once. She takes the tissue from her pocket and dabs at her eyes as the first rain drop falls. _Of course_ , she thinks. _Now that I feel good, the rain comes to hide my non-existent tears._

She stands and starts to make her way toward the road, but stops as she sees the two cars parked near her. It isn’t the cars that stun her, though. It’s who is walking toward her. She blinks a few times, certain she’s hallucinating. But Maxine, the gorgeous redheaded woman she’s become, is walking closer, one hand on her swollen stomach and one hand gripping that of a young boy. A tall Hispanic man is at her side, his hand holding onto to that of a young girl. 

Before Susan can even process what she’s seeing, a dark-haired boy and a perfect little girl come running out from between the cars, the girl’s blonde curls bouncing with each step. 

Susan drops her purse and brings her hands to her mouth to hold in her cries. She shakes her head, not willing to believe it as tears finally fall freely, the rain drops mixing with them briefly before fading away again. 

She finds herself enveloped in her sweet Maxine’s arms and cries for all of it. For her father and mother and their twisted forms of love. For pushing away her dear husband and Maxine’s father. For not being strong enough to be the safe haven for a teenage boy who was hurting, too. For falling into a trap that had cost her years with her daughter. For being relieved when a nameless doctor told her that her husband was dead. 

When she finally comes up for air, she looks around and the world stands still as bright blue eyes gaze into hers. She breathes out his name as if it is something reverent. “Billy….”

She reaches out to touch his face, but stops herself. Billy takes her wrist in his large hand. A hand so large had only been used in anger against her so Susan isn’t sure how to put a name to the feeling she experiences when Billy ever so gently presses her hand against his cheek and leans into it. She strokes his face and then runs her hand over his now shorn hair. “Billy… I’m so…. I’m so sorry.” She breaks down into tears again and feels Maxine move away as Susan is held by strong arms that mean her no harm. She can identify the emotion from earlier now. It’s joy and she wants more of it. Like a starving woman, she craves it and holds onto Billy tighter. 

At the sound of a young boy clearing his throat, she let’s go of him but stays in the circle of his arms as Sean speaks up. “Dad? Is this her?”

Susan frowns and looks up at Billy, curious and terrified at what the children have been told about her. Billy studies her face for a moment and then looks over in the direction where his father is lying, waiting to disappear forever. Susan recognizes the look. It’s one of letting go and moving on and she’s so grateful that she got the chance to see it on Billy’s face. The look of love that Billy turns on Sean is even better, though. “Yeah, buddy.” He looks up at Susan again and smiles. “This is your grandma.”

Susan gasps and starts to cry again as she looks at the children, knowing she was just gifted the best acknowledgement of forgiveness she never expected from Billy. It occurs to her that she is shedding so many tears today and none of them for her dead husband. She takes a moment to clear her eyes and looks at the little faces staring back at her. None of the children look shy, the evidence they have been raised by parents who show them every day that they are actually safe and protected in a real way. Sarah smiles and her blue eyes sparkle just like her father’s. Susan knows from the letters that technically they do not know who the father of the baby is, but she’s pretty sure it’s obvious for them all, whether it will ever be admitted to or not. 

“Hi grandma. I’m Sarah.” She holds out her little hand and Susan shakes it. She is introduced to each child and Sean makes a point to explain that he’s the oldest as he hands Susan back her purse that she had dropped earlier in her excitement. He, too, bears a strong resemblance to his father and his brother, the six month old, on the hip of the man now coming toward their little group. 

Billy steps back then and takes the baby. Susan smiles and reaches out her hands, which are quickly taken by those of the newcomer, the one who had written the letters and taken the photos, the one who Billy's look of love and trust was focused on in that beautiful photo. The one who she had sworn to secrecy after he reached out to her in the hopes that one day, this day, would come. “Steve.” 

Steve Harrington smiles. “Susan.”

She shakes her head and gives him a fond look. “I thought this was our secret.”

Steve smirks. “You wrote to me first.”

She laughs. “No. I wrote to the author of my favorite book years ago. How was I supposed to know that you and he were one and the same?”

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing you wrote to me right after I published the first book. I have _people_ who read my fan mail for me now.” He playfully nudges Billy’s arm after his blonde lover makes a snide comment about Steve’s ego. 

She squeezes his hands. “I’m so sorry. You all came for the funeral, but… I didn’t even stay. The priest might still be there, though.”

Billy shakes his head. “We didn’t come for the funeral, Susan.”

Max wraps her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “We came for you, mom.”

Susan looks around at all of them, confused. “Me?”

Billy shrugs. “The kids need a grandmother who speaks English. And Steve’s mom sucks.”

“Hey!” Steve laughs as Manuel can only shake his head in amusement. 

Billy smiles and then looks at Susan, his gaze softening. “I started my journey fifteen years ago, Max five years after that. We have some experience and Steve explained to all of us that you have a chance to start your journey now, too.”

Max nods. “Billy taught me to save myself, mom. And Steve taught him. We’d like to help you learn how to do it, too, if you think you can handle living in California and being a live-in grandma?”

Susan laughs through more tears. “I’d like that. I… I really would.” Susan looks up at the sky as the rain starts falling again and laughs harder, allowing it to cleanse her and start to heal her broken spirit. 

Steve grins. “What’s so funny, Susan?”

Susan takes her time to look at each one of the people surrounding her and reflecting on the love she sees in their eyes. “I guess I’m trying to figure out how, after all these years, I found my safe place in the middle of a cemetery on a rainy day.” 

Steve hugs her to him and then looks at the others. “Come on. Let’s go home.” 

The family members walk back to the cars and Susan can’t, for the life of her, remember what loneliness feels like anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! I don't need kudos or comments because I write for me, but I certainly do appreciate the heck out of them if you choose to take the time to give them to me. :) Thanks again for reading!


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